“People ask me, "Do you have optimism about the world, about how terrible it is?" And I say, "Yes, it's great the way it is" … I had the wonderful privilege of sitting face to face with [a Hindu guru] and the first thing he said to me was "Do you have a question?", cause the teacher always answers questions… I said, "Yes, I have a question." I said, " Since in Hindu thinking all the universe is divine, a manifestation of divinity itself, how can we say no to anything in the world? How can we say no to brutality to stupidity to vulgarity to thoughtlessness?" And he said, "For you and me, you must say yes." Well, I learned from my friends who were students of his that that happened to be the first question he asked his guru, and we had a wonderful conversation for an hour there.”

— Joseph Campbell , The Power of Myth

Episode 2, Chapter 12
The Power of Myth (1988)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "People ask me, "Do you have optimism about the world, about how terrible it is?" And I say, "Yes, it's great the way it…" by Joseph Campbell?

Joseph Campbell 140

American mythologist, writer and lecturer 1904–1987

Related quotes

“Macy: “In Truth,” I said, “there are no rules other than you have to tell the truth.”
Wes: “How do you win?” he asked
Macy: “That,” I said, “is such a boy question.”

Sarah Dessen book The Truth About Forever

Source: The Truth About Forever

“I always come back to variations of the question that my son asked me when he was three. We were sitting in a jacuzzi, and he said, "Dad, why do we exist?" There is no other question. Nobody has any other question. We have variations of this one question, from three onwards. So when you spend time in a company, in a bureaucracy, in an organization and you're saying, boy -- how many people do you know who on their death beds said, boy, I wish I had spent more time at the office? So there's a whole thing of having the courage now -- not in a week, not in two months, not when you find out you have something -- to say, no, what am I doing this for? Stop everything. Let me do something else. And it will be okay, it will be much better than what you're doing, if you're stuck in a process.”

Ricardo Semler (1959) Brazilian businessman

TED: "How to run a company with (almost) no rules" https://www.ted.com/talks/ricardo_semler_how_to_run_a_company_with_almost_no_rules/ (October 2014)

“And she keeps saying, how can you do this to me?

And i want to scream, what do you mean, how can I do this to you? Aren't we confusing our pronouns here? The question, really, is How could I do this to myself?”

Elizabeth Wurtzel book Prozac Nation

Source: Prozac Nation

“Some fella said to me, "Have you had LSD, Paul?" And I said "Yes." And it was only 'cuz I was going to just be honest with him. There's no other reason. I didn't want to spread it or anything, you know. I'm not trying to do anything except answer his question. But he happened to be a reporter, and I happened to be a Beatle.”

Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer

Pop Chronicles: Show 39 - The Rubberization of Soul: The great pop music renaissance. Part 5 http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19798/m1/, interview recorded 5.14.1968 http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1968.0514.beatles.html

“All of these politicians that I’m running against now, they’re trying to disassociate. I mean, you looked at Bush, it took him five days to answer the question on Iraq. He couldn’t answer the question. He didn’t know. I said, “Is he intelligent?” Then I looked at Rubio. He was unable to answer the question, is Iraq a good thing or bad thing? He didn’t know. He couldn’t answer the question. How are these people gonna lead us? How are we gonna — how are we gonna go back and make it great again? We can’t. They don’t have a clue. They can’t lead us. They can’t. They can’t even answer simple questions. It was terrible.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2015, Presidential Bid Announcement (June 16, 2015)

“For me, I can still say music is God, music is the face of God. That's everybody, that's the hearts of men. And that's important to me. But that's not the way everybody sees it. And, of course, what happened in interviews, especially in collective interviews, was that people would ask me questions and I would talk about development and ideals, about which I already have talked too much this afternoon, and these questions would be posed to the other musicians and they would say, "We don't want to feel that way at all, we're not into that."”

John McLaughlin (1942) guitarist, founder of the Mahavishnu Orchestra

On the visionary differences between McLaughlin and amongst other members of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, as quoted in Fripp, Robert. "Coffee and Chocolates for Two Guitars". Musician No. 45, July 1982. https://www.elephant-talk.com/wiki/Interview_with_John_McLaughlin_by_Robert_Fripp_in_Musician

“I feel it's OK if not everybody agrees with me or likes me. The weird thing was it turned into people thinking I said we deserved it. I didn't say that - but Americans do need to look at their behavior in the world. It's easy to say, "That was awful," and hard to ask, "Is there a way I can amend?"”

Maggie Gyllenhaal (1977) American actress

2008-07-08, Glasgow Daily Record

“One question," I said. "Did you tell me all that because you think I'm going to die?"
"No," he said. "It's because you're doing something brave, and I felt I should too."
"I'll take that as a yes," I said.”

Maureen Johnson (1973) writer from the USA

Source: The Name of the Star

“How can you face the world if all you can say about yourself is that you're hungry. If you can't think of anything else.”

Herta Müller book The Hunger Angel

Source: The Hunger Angel (2012), p. 17–18

“We said no to communism. We said no to apartheid. We said no to injustice. We said no to oppression. And we said yes to freedom, yes to democracy. Now I ask you: What do we say to war? CROWD: No!”

Desmond Tutu (1931) South African churchman, politician, archbishop, Nobel Prize winner

February 15, 2003 speaking before a massive rally in New York to oppose the imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq
Source: As quoted in Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931-2021) on Apartheid, War, Palestine, Guantánamo, Climate Crisis & More https://www.democracynow.org/2021/12/27/life_and_legacy_archbishop_desmond_tutu, Democracy Now!, December 27, 2021

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Joseph Campbell 140

Related quotes

Related topics